OR, LOVE IN THE TIME OF BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOS (AND DODGY 70’S KODACHROME)
This is dedicated to my sis Lizliz who was the middle one of us three siblings. I wanted to write a few things about her early years and especially the things that could be lost now to the mists of time. A lot of the anecdotes of my very odd family, are all passed down to me as I was the baby, younger by a considerable seven years to Lizliz and ten years to the eldest my brother Mark (Marky Parky) so I wasn’t present for my sisters first seven years and clearly just have memories of her from when she was about ten.
She was apparently a very cheerful little button, and from very early on showed a great love for playing families with her dollies (and later on with me) as a real life dolly) and loved her post office set which I supposed indicated that she would go onto her secretarial career , studying her Pittmans shorthand fastidiously and learning to type very fast! From early she loved things to be neat and in their place and really never cared for a more rough and tumble lifestyle like me and Mark. Hence the family saying of ‘picnic over go home’
This came about on the very first picnic she went on with mum and Mark. She always carried a pretty handkerchief in her pocket as a kind of trademark. Anyway apparently they arrived in their picnic spot and Lizliz unfolded it and sat upon it and waited expectantly for the sandwichy feast. Having eating a sandwich in a very grave manner she got up and folded up her handkerchief declaring the famous words ‘PICNIC OVER GO HOME!’ She never really took to the outdoors and unfamiliar finding it all a bit grubby and undignified!
She did however love her sweeties. She was known as the sweety bird. We had a wonderful old fashioned shop just round the corner in Bromley where we lived in the early years. She always would chirp for sweeties and always was sucking fat faced on a pineapple chunk or some acid drops. Her taste would later mature onto the pale pink spearmint ones that I can remember her demanding from her sickbed one time when she was laid up with a heavy cold. She continued with a sweet tooth through her life. She even said our mother very seriously one time ‘When I’m your mummy and you’re my little girl I’ll buy you sweeties!’ It was a very inventive type of veiled threat that if there were no sweeties for her then mum would get none at a later stage!
Liz was like a mother to me while we were growing up on the farm in Chislehurst. My actual mother had left my father and us three children just after we had moved to the cottage in Chislehurst on a farm. The trauma that we all felt from having our parents separate, moving to a new home and school and basically being isolated from everything we were familiar with was devastating. My sister was in her early teens but rose to the occasion magnificently meeting me after school to take me on the long walk down the bumpy unmade up lane. She sped this up and made it fun by us pretending we were on horses and trotting along neighing like wild things . This ritual included new names for the horses each day and the special dinners they would get when we got back. Upon returning home she would make tea for us and we would eat a lot of biscuits.
The mornings however were not her thing so often she would be brutal brushing my hair and putting it in plaits. I normally went to school with an Essex facelift! Later in fact I would go on the back of dads motorbike and Liz and Mark would walk to school through the woods. This in fact was a decoy as they would just hang out in the woods and smoke fags till they heard dads motorbike leaving and come straight back home. Skiving was very a la mode in those days.
She was also very keen on ballet. She was an all round girly girl. I was furious as my brother and sister had ballet but the money had run out when it came to me. I don’t know why I can’t find photos of her at ballet. Maybe the money had run out for photos too. I came across many of later years when she insisted upon a perm, but I can’t tease her for that atrocity as we all have bad hair days.
As a bird of the 60’s her natural inclination became a lot of dark eye makeup, the traditional ‘panda eyes’, nearly white lips and a Dusty Springfield hairdo with the required heavy backcombing and loads of hairspray. She was a Beatles girl and cried like a baby when Paul McCartney announced his engagement. I had to comfort her for hours in the front room where the black and white tv had this on a loop. I loved her mini skirts and glam look always being very proud she was my sister as she was so beautiful!
The cottage and countryside there never suited her so as soon as she hit sixteen she started her plans of escape which came into fruition when she started ‘going steady’ with Martin and finally flew the coop to my great distress. She had been my mummy and I was mortified. We kept a close relationship even though I was travelling and abroad a lot of the time in later years and her dream of having her own babies made her complete.
Later years….
I love you very much Lizliz and I’ll see you later x
Old Bird Travels Solo! 